HOW HARMONY ORIENTATION INFLUENCES PERCEPTION OF DECEPTION: EXPLORING MEDIATING AND MODERATING VARIABLES

Abstract

Harmony orientations refer to individuals’ opposing motives towards harmony maintenance as a response to conflict – one describes the promotion of relationship between parties (harmony enhancement), while the other describes the prevention of relationship disruption (disintegration avoidance). To date, studies have explored how cultural differences lead to differing harmony orientations, along with different attitudes toward deception. The present research examines the role of harmony orientations in the person’s perception of deception during negotiation. Study 1 adopts a correlation design to observe the relationship between harmony orientations and the engagement in/approval of deception in negotiation, meanwhile exploring potential mediating and moderating mechanisms. Disintegration avoidance was found to have a positive correlation with engagement in/approval of deception. On the other hand, harmony enhancement was found to have a negative indirect effect on engagement in deception through empathic concern. Study 2 attempts to replicate the results by manipulating harmony orientations when going through a negotiation scenario. Results do not provide supportive evidence for the hypotheses and the manipulation was deemed unsuccessful. Suggestions to improve the experiment design are discussed, along with practical and theoretical implications of the findings.